I’m not gonna lie, Urban Shaman is not the greatest. It is, however, engaging and interesting. I enjoyed the story and the mixing of mythologies. I think it was done fairly well, which is a plus. The story did drag in places, but never so much as into a grinding halt.
I was distracted by the police at several junctions (junctures?). They didn’t seem to react like they were real police officers. It was very odd that they just went along with Joanne’s weirdness. Even supernatural police forces don’t just go along with whatever just because a well-liked officer (who was barely an officer) said to. Morrison was actually the person who kept breaking my immersion the most. At no point should he have not fired Joanne. At the very least he should have ordered a psyche eval.
It was also somewhat weird to be reading from the perspective of someone who has little to no idea the supernatural exists or that she even has powers. I had to remind myself a couple times that Joanne wasn’t the kind of supernatural heroine I’m used to reading. You know the type: ultra competent, ultra sure of herself, and ultra comfortable with her powers. This issue was a little off-putting in the beginning, but, like I said, had to remind myself that Joanne’s a newbie with no mentor. Still really not sure how she could see Marie from a plane… that was a big sticking point in the book and with me. There’s no way you can pick out individuals on the ground from a plane.
I feel like I should say something about Gary, but… nah. He was just kinda there when Joanne needed him. Much shrugging.
Uh… the rest of the story was… interesting, I think it the word I’ll settle on. It was fun for me getting another take on The Wild Hunt mythology. I’m always here for Faerie stuff. I liked the short look at shamanism, even if it’s definitely heavily reliant on western supernatural tropes. I could definitely be wrong on that, tho. Haven’t really decolonized my mythology bookshelf (or brain) enough to speak on that for sure.
Looking forward to the next one. Hope the writing gets better. I felt it was choppier than it should have been.
No comments:
Post a Comment